Please note I haven't listed any prices
here. This is because the links will take you to the relevant entry in the amazon.co.uk
catalogue, which will give the up-to-date price (usually substantially discounted): this
may change at short notice.

www.wineanorak.comPatrick Matthews ploughs a different furrow to other
wine writers. He's a thinker -- and a bit philosophically inclined. While most wine books
aim to simplify the complicated subject of wine for the general reader, Matthews isn't
happy to take this well trodden path. Instead, he takes a complex subject and makes it
even more complicated. He established his reputation as someone prepared to grapple with
the thorny issues surrounding wine in his previous book, The wild bunch: great wines
from small producers, and Real wine follows in a similar vein. However, while The
wild bunch was an impressive book, Real wine is even better. It's a brilliantly
conceived book that makes gripping reading for anyone intrigued by the deeper issues of
wine and its production.

In essence, this book addresses the question of how to go
about making a 'real wine'. This provides a thread of continuity that ties together each
of the chapters. These embrace some of the most contentious yet vital issues surrounding
wine today, including site selection, planting the vines, organic and biodynamic
viticulture, choice of grape variety, wine making techniques, what constitutes a wine
fault, and making money. Finally, there's a fun but rather quirky appendix aimed at
helping interested readers to actually make 'real wines' themselves.

At the heart of this book is the tension between the old and new world approaches to
making wine. On the one hand there are the traditional vignerons; on the other the new
world technology-driven winemakers. But Matthews skilfully avoids the usual
generalizations and clichés surrounding the old world/new world debate by focusing mainly
on California, where winemakers reflect both traditions, and there is currently a swing
back to 'natural winemaking'. It's a good read, and pretty well researched. Matthews gives
the impression of going in open-minded, and even where he has chosen to take a stance, he
avoids being preachy.

A lot of credit has to go to publishers Mitchell Beazley, first of all for being brave
enough to publish something so far off the beaten track, and secondly for the attractive
and innovative design: the book has been produced in a squat, almost square format, rather
reminiscent of a religious publication (perhaps a prayerbook?), which is appropriate for
such a philosophical book. All in all, it's a compulsory purchase for any thinking wine
lover or wine professional.

Book Description
Real Wine begins in the late 1960s, when members of the hippy generation travelled deep
into rural France, where they discovered - and helped to preserve - the great tradition of
hands-on winemaking. 'Natural' wine production has become, in the late 1990s, a movement
that is displacing the technological, chemists' approach that until recently threatened to
engulf the wine world. Within this chronologically-structured story, Patrick contrasts the
'natural' and 'hi-tech' options of every stage of wine production. For example, in the
vineyard he contrasts the traditional approach of planting vines closely together with the
industrial trend for planting vines widely apart; in the winery he compares the pros and
cons of treading grapes by foot or by machine. Real Wine is a story about people and wine,
about how 'natural wines' are produced. It is a comprehensive, informative volume, but
above all it is a gripping story about the evolution of modern wine.

+ Identifies and explores the rise of 'natural wines' and why these
are often the best wines in the world.
+ Profiles the winemakers who are producing these 'natural wines'.
+ Explores how artisan winemaking methods are now being reintroduced to classic wine
regions.
+ Explains traditional winemaking methods and how each type influences modern wines. Go to the amazon catalogue entry for this book

wineanorak.comIn this book Patrick Matthews sets out to
explore the 'ureported wine revolution' as he calls it - the increasing number of small
producers who are taking wine back to its regional roots, and in contrast to the legion of
bland international-style wines that have flooded our supermarket shelves, are producing
wines with real personality and flavour, often at quite reasonable prices. It is a
laudable aim, and I for one am fully sympathetic to his cause. Matthews has done his
research, he's well informed, and many of the chapters make gripping reading. I especially
liked one of the later chapters, 'Cutting out the middle men', which gives a fascinating
insight into the machinations of the UK wine trade. The book can also be applauded in that
it is pioneering: in contrast to many wine publications it doesn't just go over the same
old ground. My main criticism, however, is that The wild bunch feels somewhat
unfinished: the writing style is at times quite hard work, and the transition from one
subect or chapter to the next is jerky, lacking continuity. The copyediting is pretty poor
too (see e.g. the footnote on page 11). If the author had just spent more time re-writing
and polishing the book, and had the services of a good editor, I think he could have made
it into a classic. As it stands, it is worth reading solely on the basis of the excellent
concept and fascinating snippets, even if they are not laced together too carefully. A
useful additional feature (which unfortunately will cause the book to date faster) is that
each chapter comes complete with a list of recommended wines and their suppliers in the
UK, which greatly enhances the utility of the book. A useful addition to any winelovers
bookshelf

Synopsis
In this survey of what the author calls "the unreported wine revolution", he
meets a new wave of growers and producers who are taking wine back to its regional roots
and are concerned with authenticity and purity, rather than technology and marketing.
Details of where to buy the wines are included.

The author, Patrick Matthews patrick_matthews@compuserve.com, 29
July, 1999
In The Wild Bunch I was looking for a fight. Too often, wine writers seemed to me to steer
people towards the kinds of wines that make easy money for supermarkets rather than what I
felt were 'real wines' -- handmade rather than industrially produced, free of additives
and technical manipulation and with enough concentration to age. Such wines are available
if you look for them and they're often surprisingly cheap. Of course it's the wine writers
who get called on to review wine books, and I might have expected to be critically
pummeled. Instead the experience was of being killed with kindness, and The Wild Bunch
actually won the top award of 1998, the Glenfiddich drink book of the year. Generously,
they were actually glad to see a colleague being allowed some freedom from the usual wine
book formats, and they rather warmed to the book's enthusiasm for the quixotic obsessives
who make wine because of passion for an (often) obscure region rather than because it
seems financially prudent.